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On being asked for tips, stimulation’s? To help the beginning writer?
1. Using your imagination freely, exploratively, especially on first writing draft. Don’t worry about sentence structure, spelling, grammar, NOTHING! just allow those pictures and their meaning to develop freely without curbs of ANY kind…You can always edit later, but it is too cumbersome to edit on the fly=it’s too heavy, for wings need free access to the random breezes.
2. The words will come to you if you don’t try to control them. This may not happen at first, or it may…depends on how your Rt./Lt.Brain Lobes integrate together into more whole brain function. Don’t even worry about what was just said…Both 1 & 2 can be like a whole string of “explosions” piling in on one another if you allow freedom to flow and continue the focus of following where these lead, even if it doesn’t make sense at first…Your Consciousness knows better, the sense it is trying to bring to you. At times you may find IT writing YOU=The Flow takes over. All writers experience this when they are HOT…lol.
3. If the flow happens to slow down to a stop, then ask a question and wait…like, where is this going next? or What happens now? I guess the questions may depend on what book you are writing=which I don’t know…If an answer comes, go with it until the flow slows down…just keep repeating asking questions…
4. Sometimes, I find a special sensitivity in myself is needed for the opening to come. What I mean is: I may need to be stress-free at the moment…I may need to be rested…I may have some idea that has been “tugging” at my comprehension that I just need to give the time for it to come full on…I may need to be quiet and lay down for a little rest, until the ideas start flowing again, or the words start coming to me again…Give it what it takes for YOU…
5. One thing is important: When an idea, or a sentence, or a phrase comes to you that excites you, THIS is its time. Never ignore that and say I’ll get to it later. I find that later it is just not the same juice and will not give you what it might have if you had paid attention to this in the first place when it came…If you have to, and I would suggest this, keep a pad & pen handy on you, no matter where you go or are, even driving. I finally had to get a voice recorder for in the car, so I wouldn’t have a wreck, lol…Also, if you have an idea going to sleep, even if it is stupendous, write it down on a pad next to your bed. You’d be surprised at the not remembering of it the next morning. I have lost material this way, until I learned what has to be done!
6. A time that is good for things to come to you is when you wake up in the morning, or whenever you wake up and just allow your mind to wander where it wants…to your writing, your ideas, something you are working on, whatever, or just free-float and see what comes. This is called the hypnogogic state, between sleep & waking…We are more in contact with universal knowledge then…Or after you go to bed at night and relaxed and mind-wander=that is the hypnogogic state also. Einstein was fond of this state of Being.
7. Many writers find it helpful to integrate with others on their current writing, to see what responses you are getting from trusted friends, etc., nearest you…even then though you have to remember YOU are the writer…You can pick and choose who and what you listen to. Other writers do caution one element of your writing, though: Do not talk about what you will write. This is something to keep to yourself or you may dissipate the power of your next writing to come. You have heard about “talkers” and “doers”? This has the possibility of short-circuiting your ideas coming together if you talk it out…
8. If your book has characters, persons, etc., you can play at POV, points of view, from the perspective of each separate one of them…and how they all “fit” in together…or not, and what purpose each serves in the book. If you are familiar with role-playing or psycho-drama this helps things to come up from the depths of you. If it is not about people, you still need to use one element that all great writing consists of=the raw honesty of the Self that lives, observes, thinks, and feels, and all the probing of that Self that writers do…This will touch that Self that lives in another=your reader.
9. keeping yourself in good health practices is helpful=nutrition, drinking water, exercise to keep the blood flowing well (even to your brain), supplements if you want to use these. Whatever keeps you feeling good physically and psychologically. It is good to experiment eating a wide variety of foods, preferably fresh and organic (so no pesticides, toxins, etc. are transmitted to you)…Safe drinking water, not tap water, to filter out toxins, chemicals, contaminants, etc. We are 75-80 % water ourselves, and we need to keep this replenished. Love your Self and allow that to extend out to others in our world…
10. You can consciously keep your vibrations high about your self, your life, your present, your future being created by you, your Everything…The Present is in the here and now, can look back and can explore ahead from this “Now”…KUDOS to the Writer in YOU!!!
One thought I’ll add as a ps…At any point, before or during or after you have written, you can research anything that seems appropriate to enriching your writing, and from any angle, quite imaginative as you wish=gives richness and depth of detail…
Hope this helps all you writers…
Love, Lila Bennett